There are religious idiots who show up at Pride, and then there’s “Trinity Works.”
The Christian group infiltrated Twin Cities Pride in Minnesota, setting up a corn feed [a wholesome-sounding activity that we Googled, but we’re still not quite sure what it is] and luring pride goers into their tent using overtly shady tactics and subjecting them to all manner of garbage.
And to take matters from bad to terrible, these nut jobs were convinced that they were actually there to heal people of HIV and AIDS. With Jesus.
The group’s leader Steven Uggen was quoted saying:
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
“The Lord really wanted to demonstrate his goodness to this community by releasing healing of HIV and AIDS, so we believe we’re going to see people healed of HIV and AIDS.”
The situation was so bad that OutFront Minnesota, an LGBT anti-violence program, deployed volunteers to specifically deal with the disruption Trinity Works was making.
You know, like counseling unsuspecting revelers who had just been told they were going to hell for eternity. Things like that.
And the worst part? Trinity Works is actually claiming their presence was a huge success.
Here’s the stats they posted on Facebook:
One especially sigh-worthy comment reads, “Huge dent in the earth for Jesus!”
They also tricked people into posing for pictures, claiming on social media that they’d personally brought these sinners back to God.
Case in point:
The group is promising an even more pronounced presence at next year’s event.
h/t: Colu.mn
Mack
If you believe that, then I have some beach front property for sale cheap down in Louisiana.
Merv
Any gay person who gets mixed up with Christianity gets what he deserves.
transiteer
Hopefully, there are some religious (dupes) people that are charitable and compassionate, but I doubt it. There seems to be a large number of religious (christian usually) that are off-the-stupid-scale. There’s little you can do with people this brainless, other than feel sorry for any animal that dumb and avoid them completely. They just give people a rash, and they couldn’t cure the sniffles with anybody’s Jesus.
Mezaien
How long the world have to put up with the mentally ill Christian. AND! if the Israeli, government just hear me once! and exterminate all Muslim, and Christian in their country life would have been a lot nicer.
jonjct
Queerty is getting carried away with still more virulent anti-christian rhetoric and anti-christian hate speech. These people were doing outreach and their claim to cure AIDS was metaphorical. Queerty meanwhile is making this into something it isn’t with outlandish claims and inflammatory headlines, once again trying to whip hysterical gays into ridiculing and mocking Christians. What extreme haters Queerty editors are. If you ant to be respected, then show some respect yourselves. What exactly is the matter with you anyway?
blondeboyz
Religious belief is a mental illness. Children have imaginary friends, Adults have god.
blondeboyz
@jonjct: And I have seen jesus freaks convince people to stop taking their meds. Pray the AIDS away. Where’s your outrage over that “outreach” crap?
Randy
@jonjct:
Ridiculous beliefs don’t deserve respect. If people choose to believe in a god, that’s their right, as is mine to believe they are ignorant.
DB75
@jonjct: I agree 100%.
Look, anti-thesis, everyone knows that there are assholes in Christianity. There are assholes everywhere. But don’t pull the bigot move and start generalizing and lumping everyone together and insulting them and disrespecting them. That’s just what happens to all gay people and it’s pathetic that a gay person would act in the same manner to which has been done to them in order to discriminate.
Not all Christians are like the hateful extremists. Not all Muslims are like the hateful extremists.
Kathukid
Religion, opiate of the masses.
Little-Kiwi
really? then they should head over to Africa and get a-curin’.
Stefano
@Little-kiwi : they don’t care about Africa. 😛
Merv
@DB75: That’s like a Jew saying there are “some assholes” in the Nazi party. Christianity isn’t a physical characteristic, it’s an organization formed around a specific ideology. One of the main tenets of that ideology is the eradication of homosexuality. For the past 2000 years they’ve done their best to implement it, disrupting and destroying the lives of gay people in the process, and becoming the number one enemies of gay people. You may want to ignore this reality, but the rest of us won’t.
DB75
@Merv: You are wrong wrong wrong. The “eradication” of homosexuality is no where in Christianity. Anyone who thinks that has their head up their ass. I’ve studied Christianity for over 30 yrs. But, I assume since you state such an idiotic statement that your experience with Christianity is extremely limited.
You people forget the demonstrations that have spent years working for LGBT rights. United Church of Christ just sued the state of North Carolina so that they can perform same sex marriages.
There are lots of Christians that are fully supportive of LGBT rights and equality. But you’re too fucking full of hatred to see past it.
You may want to ignore this reality, but you’d be a fool.
Merv
@DB75: UCC is nobody. They are microscopic compared to other denominations, and even then it takes them until 2014 to do something concrete in the public arena? Too little, too late.
The real action in Christianity is the evangelicals and Catholics. They are the real Christians, and they HATE gay people, and have been very effectively fighting against gay rights for decades, while the microscopic liberal congregations have been content to cede the public face of Christianity to the bigots. If support of gay rights happens only behind Church doors, then it is meaningless.
Stefano
@DB75 : because some Christians are supportive of LGBT rights doesn’t mean All Christians can say anything they want about us or HIV. And yes, many gays are atheists but not because they hate Christians but because they just don’t beleive in god…and that’s what upset you.
DB75
@Merv: You’ve obviously been living under a rock for the past 100 yrs. UCC has been fighting for equality for decades.
It’s interesting – you attack Christianity for being “against gays”, yet when a denomination comes forward to support LGBT equality, you find a reason to not given them validation or accept their support. Something tells me you’d bitch, moan, and complain if you were hung with a gold rope – nothing will ever been good enough for you. If you can’t take what support you get with grace, then maybe you don’t deserve it.
Evangelicals and Catholics do not hate gay people. Stop lying your fucking ass off!! You keep making comments and statements you know are false. Who hates gay people are the same people that hate everyone and everything else – the religious extremists. Get it right!
DB75
@Stefano: You’re full of shit. Instead of assuming things about me – why not fucking ask? Is that beyond your scope of maturity?
Ben Dover
@jonjct: “their claim to cure AIDS was metaphorical.”
I don’t see that in the article, but if that’s what they’re doing, is curing AIDS “metaphorically” the same as doing nothing?
Merv
@DB75: UCC has been paying lip service, behind church doors, not fighting. Where is the liberal Christian equivalent of Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, National Organization for Marriage, Knights of Columbus, American Family Association, Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, etc., etc.? THEY DON’T EXIST! The liberal churches have done little or no lobbying or public relations initiatives in favor of gay rights. What they have done is accept gay people in their own congregations, and maybe marched in gay pride parades. That’s it. Big whoop! One lawsuit in North Carolina 2014 doesn’t make up for years of inaction.
DB75
@Merv: First of all, UCC has done more than any other religious group to support LGBT persons. It does not matter the level of support, it’s support. You want to deny these people’s help because you don’t think they’ve done enough. Actually, what have you done? What organization have you created? You can’t bitch that someone isn’t doing something for you if you aren’t helping yourself.
Secondly, there is no need for a “liberal” version of anything the far right does. The far right does it because society as a whole is against them. Lord, your complaint sounds like when straight people are all “Where’s our straight pride parade?” – you don’t need the parade since every day is for you. Same thing – since more and more people are coming out in support of LGBT equality, there is no point to create a equivalent to the nastiness others do. It’s redundant.
I recommend you stop hating people and start learning about them. The world does not revolve around you or your wants. It doesn’t mine, either. Things happen in their own time. With regards to LGBT equality, it takes time for people to come to their senses. If you force it, it backfires. It’s getting there. In the next 20 yrs or so there will be full legal equality. 20 yrs ago, there was too much doubt we’d ever get as far as we have. I choose to see the glass as half full, not half empty.
Ogre Magi
@DB75: How could any LGBT person defend a religion that has devoted the past 2000 years to persecuting their own kind???
Most likely you are just some straight bible-cultist who is here to do some of the same “stealth evangelism’ that this article exposes
DB75
@Ogre Magi: You, are an idiot.
Ogre Magi
@DB75: Sounds like I hit the nail on the head.
Why are you posting on a gay website anyway?
Haven’t you got a copy of the Origin of Species to go burn?
DB75
@Ogre Magi: Because I’m a gay, you asshole. Why the fuck would I be here?
Do you always play the victim? Does that make you feel better? You can’t formulate respect for people different than you, so you attempt to belittle them.
It’s sad, tho. You just proved 100% that gay people can be just as big bigotty assholes as the religious extremists.
You deserve your misery.
Merv
@DB75: You’re not going to get off that easily. Then where were the pro-gay liberal Christian groups twenty, thirty, or forty years ago? When Southern white Christians were persecuting blacks, at least there were a few pro-black Christian groups willing to put themselves on the line. Nothing comparable exists or has ever existed for gay people. You need to acknowledge how stark the contrast is. There is complicity in silence, and I don’t intend to ever let Christians forget about what was done to us in their name while they either participated or stood silently by. They want it to be forgotten, but it won’t be.
Ogre Magi
@DB75: If you really are gay, then you are noting more than a quisling.
DB75
@Merv: You’re anger is justified, but not appropriately targeted. You need to focus your anger on those that committed the crimes, not those that were either unaware or had little to no power to stop it.
I do not believe you take the society and time of these events into consideration. A lot has changed in the past 60 yrs.
Just remember this one thing – it’s not right to blame events on people that had nothing to do with them.
DB75
@Ogre Magi: You cannot hurt me. You’re small minded and weak. You are below me. Take your bitchy attitude and go fuck yourself. Pissy queens like you make us all look bad.
Ogre Magi
Does your pastor know you post here? I would hate to think what kind of trouble you would get into if he found out
DB75
@Ogre Magi: My pastor is a woman. Her name is Rev. Ginny Brown Daniel. My church is Plymouth United Church, United Church of Christ. We are the only open and affirming church in the North Houston area. I’m not only a member, I’m a church officer and Council Secretary.
Here is our website.
http://www.plymouthunited.org/
We have many LGBT persons at our church.
Kinda blows your little attack out of the fucking water, huh, bigot?
Ogre Magi
@DB75: Typical christian double talk. I am sure you have convinced yourself that jebus won’t hate you quite so much if you proselytize some wicked homosexuals. Will Rev. Ginny (Shirley Phelps-Roper) Daniel give you a gold star for that?
DB75
@Ogre Magi: What a horrible miserable little troll you must be.
I don’t deserve to be attacked by such a hateful piece of shit like you. I’ve done nothing wrong. You are a BIGOT, nothing more. You’re sad and pathetic.
Enjoy your lonely miserable life. I’m off to see my husband of 20 yrs – something you will never have.
Ogre Magi
@DB75: Keep your Jesus off my penis, and I’ll keep my penis off of you!
jonjct
@DB75: Thank you. When are gay people going to learn that acting like your oppressor(s) is a stupid and despicable act. The Israeli’s now treat the Palestinians like Hitler treated the Jews. They just burned that Palestinian boy ALIVE in so-called retaliation for the murder of Jewish teens. When all along it was just hatred of Palestinians. Gays have to have some respect if they want others to respect them. Right now, that’s not happening.
jonjct
@Kathukid: No, girlfriend, TV is the opiate of the masses. And you’re watching it right now.
DickieJohnson
@Mezaien: How long do we have to put up with mentally ill Mezaien??? Get some help!!!
Stache99
@Stefano: “they don’t care about Africa” Yes they do. Just look at Uganda. That’s a whole lot of caring if you ask me.
Stache99
@jonjct:I’ve learned from previous discussions with you that you’re someone that’s likes to play with facts by ignoring them or just making shit up. Finding out your someone of faith make allot more sense now.
Thinktwice
The headline is a complete fail since your team did not report on any of the supposed healings (if there even were any.) If you’re going to shame the trolls who wish ill-will on LGBT community, do it well. Leave no prisoners.
Thinktwice
@Merv: Yo merv, no pro-gay liberal Christian groups ever existed? Do you live under a rock?